Stars Are Watching
by Bimadabomi
Summary: Luke and Lorelai go camping. One shot, with a lot of fluff.


Stars Are Watching

This just needed to be done. I don't know if I'm the one who should have done it, but I attempted. There's a good deal of fluff here. Actually, it's mostly fluff. So there ya go.

xxxxxxx

"I can't believe you didn't talk me out of doing this," Lorelai pouted, sitting at the counter of the diner slowly sipping her coffee. "What happened to looking out for the well-being of your fiancée? Your future wife? The woman you're going to spend the rest of your life with?"

"I'm aware of the meaning of 'fiancée,'" Luke said, putting the coffee pot away. "Besides, why would I talk you out of it?" Luke asked. "I want to go."

"I'm just now realizing just how crazy this idea was. I mean, next year for your birthday? A nice shirt, a nice dinner, some nice sex and we're done with it."

He glanced around to make sure no one was listening to her. When satisfied that no one was, he decided to let it go. "We don't have to go if you really don't want to," he conceded.

Lorelai sighed heavily. "Don't do that. Don't give me an out. We're doing this, no matter how out of character it is for me. Now just let me enjoy the rest of the last cup of coffee I'll have all weekend."

He shrugged and wiped down the counter once more before turning to Lane, who had just bounced behind the counter looking for an order. "Hey, Lane, are you sure you're okay with the place this weekend?"

"We'll be fine," Lane said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. "Caesar and I have a good flow. We did run the place for a whole summer when you were in Maine," she reminded him, picking up a plate.

"I know. But you've been busy lately and-"

"We're fine, Luke, relax," she assured him before disappearing again to deliver the order.

Luke looked to Lorelai and shrugged. "Sorry. I tried. I gave her a chance to beg me to stay and it didn't work. Guess you're out of luck."

Lorelai smiled slightly from behind her coffee cup. "Darn," she teased. "Okay. Ready?" she asked, putting her coffee cup down, apparently ready to accept her fate.

She had spent weeks trying to figure out what to give Luke for his birthday this year. It was true that they had already been together during his birthday once, and that first one had gone well. She'd bought him gifts, signed the card 'love,' even though neither of them had said anything about love to each other yet, they went out to dinner, and she wore the black dress that he appreciated so much, letting the night finish with his final gift—letting him take the dress off.

But by the time his birthday rolled around again, she had freaked. The year they had spent together since his last birthday had been full of ups and downs. Ups and downs for them, ups and downs for her. Backstabbing parents, daughters dropping out of Yale, uncovered dark days, returning fathers of children with proclamations of love, meddling mothers, naked Kirks, accidental break ups complete with spontaneous reconciliations, and, she couldn't forget, spur of the moment proposals that ended with Luke accepting, which propelled the current mess of wedding plans they were buried in the middle of at the moment.

And all in one year.

The first birthday of Luke's they had spent together, they had barely begun dating. By the next birthday of Luke's, they had gone through so much and were now engaged. To Lorelai, it seemed like an insane amount of things to go through in only one year.

Not to mention she had never, ever been with someone for more than one of his birthdays. Even Christopher had only celebrated one with her when they were officially together as teenagers.

She knew she wouldn't be satisfied with giving him any little gift this year. She had thought long and hard, and drove Sookie and Rory crazy, trying to figure out what to get him. Something that would show him how much she loved him and how much everything in the past year had meant to her, even the miserable parts-- because they had pulled through. Something that would show him how much she needed him and depended on him now, and how she never would have made it through parts of the last year without him.

Sookie's suggestion had been a new hat.

Clearly, she didn't know anything, Lorelai soon realized.

Rory's suggestion had been to call Liz and ask for suggestions about what Luke would really like.

She wasn't much help either.

So Lorelai figured it out on her own (and resignedly admitted that she had given Liz a call, hoping that Liz knew something that somehow she didn't know already) and came up with the idea of going camping with him (in addition to a typical birthday gift with the card again signed 'love,' this time they both knew they'd used the word with each other many times, and the nice dinner with the added gift of her new red dress that Luke seemed to like as much as the black one).

It had seemed brilliant at the time. Luke needed to take time off from time to time. Doing something he enjoyed would clearly show him that she would do anything for him, or, in this case, with him, even if it were something she wouldn't normally do on her own. She was sure this would show him everything she was so desperately trying to show him.

And now, sitting in the diner with all their belongings for the camping filled weekend securely packed in the truck, she was beginning to realize this meant she actually had to go camping.

xxxxxxx

"You bought the damn CD," Lorelai pointed out, waving Reggae Fever at him.

"That doesn't mean I want to listen to it every time we get in the car," Luke shot back, glancing at her before turning his eyes back to the road.

"I don't think you want to listen to it at all, ever," she explained knowingly.

"It was an impulse buy," Luke said with a shrug. "Can we please just forget about the CD?"

"Why did you really buy it?" she pressed on. "This is not you. You don't think I know that?"

"We've had this conversation before."

"I know. But I've never been satisfied with the answer."

"And what makes you think today's answer will be the one you're looking for?"

"Hopefully I've driven you so crazy by now that you give in."

"I bought it because it was there, okay? Now can we please drop it?"

She shrugged. "Alright." She dropped the CD back into the glove compartment in compliance with his request.

"I think you're the one who likes it," he stated as she started flipping through her own CDs.

She frowned. "What?"

"You're the one who puts it in all the time and then sits here listening to it."

Her mouth dropped open. "But-" she stopped flipping through the CDs in shock, trying to think of a comeback. When she couldn't, she flipped the page in the CD book and decided to ignore him.

xxxxxxx

They arrived at their destination, and Lorelai jumped out of the truck, dramatically stretching her legs.

"Ahh, freedom!" she exclaimed happily.

"It wasn't that long of a drive," Luke told her, getting out of the truck as well. "Plus we stopped like four times for coffee."

"Only three. And by the way, all that coffee sucked. You should teach them a thing or two, become a coffee consultant."

He ignored her, so she took a moment to look around. They were off the road slightly, and the spacious ground was filled with dirt. There were a bunch of large rocks randomly placed around the campsite, and a bunch of rocks that someone had obviously used to form a pit for a campfire. Trees were all around she noticed, thankful for the shade, and the river ran by at the very edge of the campsite.

"It's pretty here," she stated.

Luke raised his eyebrows, surprised she wasn't instantly complaining. "Yeah. It is."

"So. What's first on our agenda here?" she was full of energy, and she chalked it up to the last cup of coffee. It may not have been good, but it had been strong.

"Unpack the truck."

She moved to the back of the truck and let the gate down, pulling out two of their bags. "There. Next?"

Luke rolled his eyes. "We should probably set up the tent," he decided, "because, I mean, without that we don't have much."

"Right, right." She watched as he went to the back of the truck and pulled one of the remaining boxes out. "What the hell is that?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips.

"This?" he looked at her as if she were insane. "The tent."

"It's in a box."

Luke put the box down for a moment to look at her, apparently unable to let this go without questioning her.

"And where did you think it would be, if not in a box?"

She thought about this. "I don't know. In, like, a plastic case or something."

He shook his head and picked up the box, carrying it to an area that he began clearing small rocks and sticks from.

"Do we have to put it there?" Lorelai asked suddenly.

"You have a better idea?"

"Well," she shrugged, "it's just that the view is no good from there."

"We are not choosing a spot to set up a tent based on its view."

"Why not? Hotels charge extra for good views, you know. We can get the good view for free. And we're going to take the crappy view? What sense does that make?"

"If we put it anywhere else it will be in direct sunlight all day long and extremely hot. Here," he gestured to the shade, "it should stay pretty cool."

Lorelai pondered this for a moment. "Fine… we'll do it your way just this once."

Luke smirked knowingly. "Okay." He dumped the contents of the box, and the poles came rolling out.

Lorelai squinted at them. "What the hell do we use those for?"

"The poles?"

"Yeah. Poles, metal pieces, things that make this look more complicated than it should be, whatever."

"To hold the tent up."

"Are you serious? You don't have one of those tents that you just pull out of the case and it pops up?"

"No."

She shrugged and watched as Luke began to set the tent up. He laid the tent out and then sorted the poles by length. She shrugged, figuring that he knew what he was doing and sat down.

After a while of Luke expertly setting the tent up and Lorelai sitting on a large rock examining her fingernails, Luke finally turned to her.

"Hey," he called, after a failed attempt or two of calling her name.

She suddenly jerked up, dropping her hands back to her side. She was shaken from her thoughts quickly. "What?"

"Sorry to distract you from important things," he deadpanned, "but hand me a pole?"

"Oh. Which one?" she asked, getting up off the rock and wiping her jeans off.

"Uhh, B."

Lorelai jumped suddenly and looked around. "A bee? Where?"

He rolled his eyes. "Relax. No. B, as in the letter. A 'B pole'. That's its name."

"That's a dumb name," she declared. "Which one is B?"

"The medium sized one. The size between A, the largest, and C, the smallest."

"Someone was really uncreative when naming these." She glanced at the piles of poles. "It would be so much easier to get one of those pop up tents," she said, grabbing a pole and handing it to him.

"Sorry, I don't spend as much time watching infomercials as you do."

"Then how'd you know it was shown on an infomercial, huh?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips. "And I do not watch infomercials all the time."

"Really, you don't?" he asked, stopping with the tent to look at her with a raise of his eyebrows.

"No, Mr. Smarty Pants, I don't."

"So all those nights when you fall asleep with the TV on and I wake up and turn it off it's just a coincidence that it's on the channel that always plays infomercials? Which might I add is why I saw the infomercial for the pop up tent."

She bit her lip. "Fine, I watch, okay? But there's nothing on late at night other than infomercials. Besides, I don't clean too often so I watch those great cleaning supplies do their jobs and I feel like I've done something productive."

He nodded. "Sure."

"Stop laughing at me!" she insisted.

He looked exasperated. "I'm not laughing. Do you hear me laughing?"

"You're laughing in your head."

"You're paranoid." He paused. "C?"

"See what?" she asked, and he only shook his head in response.

xxxxxxx

"Now, see, marshmallows were made for campfires." She pulled a marshmallow out of the bag next to her and stuck it on a stick, holding it out over the fire.

"I can't believe you're putting that marshmallow, which you are later going to eat, on a stick you found on the ground."

"It's just a stick. It came off a tree, can't be that dirty, right?" she asked with a shrug.

"Since you're already eating the marshmallow off the stick," he said, watching her pop it into her mouth, "I'll refrain form pointing out how dirty it actually could be."

"I appreciate that, thanks," she said with a mouth full of marshmallow. She pulled another marshmallow out of the bag and held it out to him. "Marshmallow?"

"I'm good, thanks."

"C'mon," she pouted. "It's a camping trip. You eat marshmallows when you go camping. If I have to go camping, period, you have to eat a marshmallow. Oh!" she jumped up and ran over to the box of food they had brought, rummaging through until she found the graham crackers and chocolate bar. "Now, this is a camping trip, my friend," she said happily, settling down next to Luke again with her food.

"S'mores?" he asked.

"You do know a thing or two about junk food," she grinned happily.

"Liz used to be obsessed with those things when we were kids."

"She has good taste." She paused. "And you? You must have had junk when you were a kid, you couldn't have always had these eating habits."

"If Liz would let me near them, then sure, I ate them sometimes."

She handed a graham cracker to him. "You know you want one now."

"If I say no are you going to keep pestering me until I eat one?"

She nodded. "Pretty much."

"Fine, then," he sighed. "Give me your stick."

She gasped. "You're going to eat a marshmallow off the stick?"

"Unless you want me to hold my whole hand over the fire, then I don't see what choice I have." She handed her stick over and watched as he put the marshmallow on and toasted it over the fire. He then put it, along with chocolate, on his graham cracker and took a bite.

"Happy?" he asked.

She nodded excitedly. "Very. How's it taste?"

"Not bad."

"I knew it. You're a junk food addict at heart."

"Don't get used to it."

"I wouldn't dare."

The fire had been burning for a while, and the flames were getting low. "This sucks for toasting marshmallows," Lorelai stated. She snatched her stick back from Luke and plucked a marshmallow from the bag and stuck it on the stick, then held it as far into the fire as she could.

She pulled the stick out and it was still full of sparks. She blew on them and waited until they disappeared before attempting to remove the marshmallow.

"That's an accident waiting to happen," Luke declared.

"That's the only way to get the marshmallow appropriately toasted with the low fire." She repeated her process successfully. "See?" she held out the toasted marshmallow for Luke to see. "A perfect amount of brown." A gust of wind came up, causing the trees to rustle. "You think there are animals around here?"

"There aren't any animals."

"How are you so sure?"

"I've been camping here for a long time, and never once has a wild animal shown up."

"Well, that's no proof that there's no animals, just that you yourself have never seen one." She pulled the stick, full of sparks out of the fire again, but this time a spark jumped on her hand and she let the stick go in shock, letting it hit Luke and land in his lap.

"Oh my God!" she gasped, putting her hand over her mouth but unable to hold back a giggle as Luke gave her a dirty look and picked up the stick, shaking the sparks off it. "I'm so sorry," she added with an innocent smile. "Are you okay?"

"I'd be better if you stopped playing with fire."

"I'm sorry," she laughed.

"You know, most women wait until after they're married to try and kill their husbands."

"I'm sorry!" she said again with a giggle.

"Just be glad today wasn't one of the days I walk around with lighter fluid on me."

She scooted closer to him. "I said I was sorry," she whispered into his ear, planting a kiss on his temple, then leading a trail of kisses from his temple to his lips, which she kissed a few times. "Better?"

"Maybe," he muttered against her lips. She continued to place more kisses against his lips, letting them get longer and deeper until she was sure he had forgotten about the fire incident.

After she pulled away from him she got up and picked up a bucket, taking it to the stream. She returned with a bucket of water, which she poured over the fire.

"My gift to you."

"Thank you."

She shrugged and picked up her marshmallow stick off the ground, sitting back down next to Luke on the rock. She began drawing patterns in the dirt with the stick. Luke watched her draw their initials and then surround them with a heart.

"We'll have the same initials when we get married," she noted. "We'll have to throw in our middle initials in to clarify."

He seemed to be thinking, and silence filled the air.

"It was because it didn't remind me of you."

She jerked her head up and scrunched up her face in confusion. "What?"

"The CD."

"Reggae Fever?" she asked, knowing full well that's what he was talking about, and he nodded.

"Every CD I had in my car was one that you had requested off that list we made. Somehow you had gotten them all collected in the car, and every time I got in the car the only thing I could listen to was something that reminded me of you."

"Oh," she said quietly.

"And then it reminded me when we made the list of CDs you wanted me to get, because that was why I had the CDs in the first place. And you, uh, remember when we made that list, right?"

She looked down at the ground and nodded. "Yeah," she said with a smile, glancing at him. "I remember."

"So there I was, miserable to begin with, and it didn't help that every time I drove somewhere, not only was I reminded of you, but of the first night we spent together, and… it got to be too much, it was too frustrating. So I just bought the first CD I came across that didn't remind me of you. And it was one of the only things, period, that I had that didn't remind me of you."

"I'm sorry," she said sadly.

"For what?"

"I don't know. But that's a sad story and I think I had a part in it somewhere."

"None of that was your fault."

"I guess," she shrugged. "I'm just… I'm sorry that we were even apart in the first place."

"We've had this discussion before," he reminded her. "That's all over."

She nodded eagerly. "I know. You're right." She began tracing patterns in the dirt again, writing his name and her name and drawing random little patterns. "I feel like I'm in high school again," she noted with a laugh, nodding down at her artwork. "Except, after sophomore year I was making lists of baby names, not random doodles. Lot of good that did me anyway, since I ended up naming Rory after me. That was not on the list."

"What were you going to name her?" he asked suddenly. She looked up, surprised at his question.

"Oh. Uh, my mom wanted me to name her Eleanor, after her mother. But, of course, I never did anything my mother wanted, so I doubt that would have happened. I think my pick was Alexandra. Just because I liked it. And a boy was going to be, umm, I don't even remember now," she laughed. "Whatever the name of that guy in that movie I had been watching before Rory was born was named. Joshua? I think that was it."

Luke thought for a minute. "I can't see Rory as an Alexandra."

Lorelai thought about this, too. "Yeah, me either," she agreed. "Well, not the old Rory anyway. This new one maybe." He gave her a concerned look, and she stopped him. "Don't worry. Rory and I just got things worked out, I'm not going to worry about her new Alexandra-like personality right now."

"Okay. Good."

She caught his gaze at that moment and smiled at him. "So what do we do now? We've done the whole campfire bit-"

"Very gracefully, might I add."

She giggled. "Extremely gracefully. There's a reason I'm not an outdoor person." She paused. "Shouldn't you, like, show me some constellations or something?" she asked, looking up at the star filled sky.

"I don't know any constellations," he noted.

"So? I don't either. Pretend. I'll never be any wiser."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to pretend."

"I come camping with you and you can't even pretend to know constellations?"

"Okay. Fine. That one, is, uh…" he thought, "the big dipper."

Before she had a chance to remind herself she shouldn't, she jumped in. "No it's not, that's over th-" she paused. "Sorry," she added with a giggle, noticing his glare. "I swear that's the only one I know. Well, that and the little dipper."

"You're impossible." He looked up at the sky, actually studying it. "Actually… I think that one is Scorpio."

"That one's yours. How appropriate, since this is a birthday present after all."

"Astrology doesn't mean anything," he stated. "I mean, did you know there were originally thirteen signs in the zodiac? One just got left out when someone made up the little astrology scrolls. Which means that the people whose birthdays really fall on that sign are grouped in some other sign, and then they're all off. People who have birthdays at the beginning and the end of the little time brackets for each sign most likely weren't even really born under that sign."

"For someone who claims he doesn't know any constellations, you sure know a lot about astrology." He shrugged. "And you sure seem bitter about it for someone who carried a horoscope around in his wallet for eight years."

"Nine, now," he muttered, looking down, slightly embarrassed.

"It's still in there?" she checked. He nodded. For some reason, she had never really thought about where the horoscope was after he had shown it to her. She never thought he had taken it out, but she also hadn't thought of it still sitting there in his wallet. "I see," she mused.

"Even though I think it already brought me the luck you promised."

She giggled. "Yeah, it sure did. You showed it to me and an hour later we were in your bed." She sighed. "It's almost like… I knew. It's like somehow my mind knew to do that and knew to forget about it," she said, wrapping her arms around herself. "It's cold out here without the fire."

He nodded. "It's probably late anyway. We should get to sleep."

She nodded. "I'm all for sleep," she agreed. "Even if it is on the ground. I'm exhausted."

"Besides," he said, getting up and taking her hand to pull her up off the rock, "the sun will probably be bright early tomorrow morning and we'll be up early."

She stopped in her tracks. "Early? You never said anything about waking up early."

He shook his head and took her hand, urging her to continue on towards the tent. "You've been such a good sport, don't turn on me now."

"Oh, if anything would make me turn, it would be the waking up early."

"Don't be so sure." He let go of her hand and crawled into the tent.

"And just what does that mean?" she asked, following him a moment later. "What kind of horror do you have planned to inflict on me?"

xxxxxxx

She gave up on trying to sleep twenty minutes after they had said goodnight and gotten into their respective sleeping bags.

She was freezing.

Okay, not freezing, she decided, but she was cold. She started to think that maybe she should have listened to Luke about not going camping in late October. But the weathermen on all the channels had said this weekend would be unusually warm.

She rolled over and glanced at Luke, who she saw had his eyes closed but she knew he wasn't asleep yet either.

She groaned and made a lot of noise, getting up and getting out of her sleeping bag, causing Luke's eyes to pop open.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm freezing," she said, scooting over towards him, leaving her sleeping bag abandoned. "Scoot."

"What?"

"I'm coming in there," she told him, gesturing at his sleeping bag. "So make room."

"Lorelai-" he began, but she was already unzipping the sleeping bag enough so that she could squeeze in next to him. She was suddenly thankful he had a large sleeping bag. He had no choice but to move so that there was room for her as she crawled into his sleeping bag.

"Much better," she stated as she tried to figure out where to place her arms in the confined space.

"Oh yeah, much better," Luke rolled his eyes. "I can't even move. Can you move?"

She grinned and scooted a knee dangerously close to his thigh. "Yep, I can move."

"Okay, stop," he said. "If you're staying in here we're not going to torture me."

She laughed. "Sorry," she said, closing her eyes and letting her head rest on the nearest part of his body to her, which happened to be his arm.

"Maybe you should turn the other way," he suggested. She shook her head quickly.

"No. This way is much warmer." As if she really knew.

"We're going to be melting in the morning when the sun hits and we're like this," he reminded her. "Just so you know."

"I'll worry about that later," she said. "You were right," she decided, letting a finger trace patterns on his chest that was just inches from her, "maybe camping in October isn't a great idea."

He shrugged. "It's just cold tonight," he said. "It might warm up tomorrow night."

She nodded, noticing that they were shoved so close that she could hear his heart beating.

"Do you get it?" she asked suddenly.

"Get what?" he asked, closing his eyes.

"What I was trying to say with this trip," she stated, and he opened his eyes to peer at her. "I wanted this to be such a great birthday for you, you know? Because since your last birthday we've been through so much and you've been so amazing when I needed you," she shrugged as well as she could in the confines of the sleeping bag. "I just felt like… there was no way to express how much this year has meant to me and how important you are to me. This was the best I could come up with."

"You could have ignored my birthday completely and I would have known," he informed her. "Because it's been the same way for me this past year. I get it, believe me."

She looked up at him and smiled. "So I got stuck on this camping trip for no reason?" she teased.

"Guess so," he told her, moving his arm so that it was around her and in a more comfortable position.

"I love you," she muttered as she closed her eyes. Finally warm, her body allowed itself to begin to drift off to sleep as she listened to Luke's heart beating. "Don't snore," she added. "That'll definitely wake me up like this."

"Me?" he asked. "Look who's talking."

She gasped, opening her eyes. "I do not snore!"

"Ask Rory and she'll tell you the same."

"Have you and Rory been discussing my snoring habits?" she gasped. "Traitors. Both of you."

She felt Luke chuckle. "Good night."

xxxxxxx

"This seemed like a good idea last night," she stated, prying her completely asleep arm off of Luke by lifting it with her other hand.

"To you, maybe," he grumbled.

"If we hadn't already swapped just about every other bodily fluid, I'd say the fact that my sweat had your arm stuck to me was gross."

He shook his head. "Let's just get up."

"And how, exactly, do we do that?"

"You're the one who climbed in here, you climb out first."

She groaned as she tried to climb out of the sleeping bag, a difficult task being stuck to Luke and unsure if they'd freed all their limbs from one another. They had awoken in a tangled mess, and she wasn't sure she was going to recover from it anytime soon.

"God, I feel like I slept on a rock," she moaned as she reached back to massage her neck.

"Maybe we did," Luke reminded her, gesturing to the floor of the tent as he got out of the sleeping bag. "Or maybe it was the fact that we were sharing a sleeping bag all night that created that feeling."

She smiled at him, pulling her mess of hair off her face. "Thank you." He gave her a questioning look. "For keeping me warm last night." He shrugged. "So what's up for today?" she ruffled around and found her hairbrush, running it through her hair.

"Whatever you want," he told her, changing out of the t-shirt he had slept in and putting a new one on.

"Whatever I want, huh?" she teased. "Let's see. So first I guess-"

"That's it. Just for that, we're fishing."

"No!" she gasped. "Sorry, I'm sorry."

"Too late," he told her.

"Luuuke," she whined. "I'm not fishing."

"Yes you are."

"I didn't even say anything to deserve this!" she said, letting a laugh escape her lips.

"I know you, and I know something sarcastic was coming out of your mouth."

"You can't prove it."

"So what were you going to say then?"

She sighed and scrunched her face up. "Fine. So, fishing?"

xxxxxxx

"We're throwing back whatever we catch," she insisted, hands on her hips as they approached the edge of the river.

"Yes, I know. I promise," Luke agreed, handing her a pole. She took it and examined it for a moment.

"How the hell does this work?" she asked, pulling on the reel.

"The other way," he directed her. "I've taught you this before," he recalled.

"Yeah, well, that was a long time ago and I've been out of practice. And I don't have my special fishing outfit, I think that takes away from my ability to do this."

"Just take the rod in your right hand," he directed. She looked at him, making no move to do anything. He sighed and moved behind her to help her, positioning her hands in the proper places. He picked up her left hand. "Slide the bail over…"

"Pull back to ten o'clock," she continued, causing him to raise his eyebrows. "Don't ask me why that stuck," she added.

He guided her arm and helped her cast the line into the water.

"And you're good to go," he stated, letting his fingers slide gently across her arms before he moved back to his own pole.

"So, tell me," she said, turning to give him a mischievous smile, "Why didn't I get that kind of instruction the first time around?"

He shrugged. "You have to pay extra for that."

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, sitting down on the large rock next to the stream. "Dirty."

He shook his head. "If you say so."

She sat for a while, staring down into the water, jiggling her pole every so often. Luke seemed to be in deep thought, and she didn't want to disturb him—she always assumed fishing was a quiet activity.

A moment later she felt something on her line. She didn't think anything of it until she felt it again, and then realized that she was, in fact, fishing.

"Oh my God!" she squealed. "I think I caught something."

Luke snapped out of his thoughts. "No way. It's been like five minutes."

"Well, I'm telling you, something is biting."

He took the pole from her and looked shocked. "You're right."

"Jeez, you think just because I'm a woman I can't tell when I've caught something?" she chided.

"I didn't say that, I just—" he remembered the fish. "Okay, here," he handed the pole back to her and she froze.

"What? Don't give this back to me! I want nothing to do with this anymore."

"Just reel it in," he told her. "And when it gets close enough we can unhook the fish and let it go."

"Luke," she half whined half cried.

"Reel it."

She reluctantly reeled the line in, and gasped when she saw the fish attached to it.

"Aw! Poor guy. Poor Tommy."

"Tommy?"

"He looks like a Tommy. He kind of looks like Tommy Lee Jones."

Luke shot her a look. "Okay, well, let's just free Tommy here before you freak out on me." He reached down into the water and fumbled with the hook for a moment.

"Well?" Lorelai demanded. "What's the hold up?"

"He's stuck."

"You better not kill Tommy, Luke, I swear—"

"Relax. If you're so worried, help me."

"Oh, no, no way."

"You're the one who wants to let all the fish go, you think you could help."

"Okay, okay. What do you want me to do?" she gave in, assuming he would have her hand him something or hold something.

"Hold the fish." Holding something was right.

Her jaw dropped for a moment. "Wh- what?" she asked.

"It's moving around too much, just hold it still so I can get the hook out."

"Seriously, Luke, I haven't turned into Pollyanna in a weekend."

"You can either hold the fish or unhook it."

She closed her eyes and grimaced as she leaned down and put her hands into the water and around the fish. "Ew, oh my God, ew," she whimpered.

"Okay."

She opened an eye to peer at Luke. "Okay what?"

"It's unhooked, let go of him and he's free."

She quickly let her hands go and watched the fish swim off. "Aww, look at him go. It's Tommy's lucky day today." She pulled her hands out of the water. "Ugggh," she shuddered, waving her hands at Luke. "Ew, fish are slimy and… ugh."

He chuckled. "You don't look so good."

She groaned and glared at him. "I had no idea letting the fish go would be so complicated."

"But you caught a fish."

She grinned. "And before you!"

"What's your trick?"

"Obviously the fish are lured to me because I'm so beautiful."

"Obviously."

"I'm serious. It's a nice talent to possess. It also works on diner owners."

"I don't see the fish or the diner owners getting to tell their sides of the story."

"If the diner owner knows what's good for him, he'll agree. And the fish, too, because otherwise I might not be so quick to jump in and touch the slimy suckers just so they can live until the next fisherman down the river catches them." He smirked. "What?"

"It's just, I've gone fishing many, many times since I was a kid, and I don't think it's ever been as entertaining as you have made it today. I can't believe you touched that fish."

"I'll take that as a compliment." She paused for a moment. "So how long until you catch a fish, huh, Buddy?"

He glared at her and she giggled. They drifted back into silence, Luke still fishing, Lorelai refusing to put her pole back in the water—she was not reliving the fish incident again.

"Now, does your talent work on all diner owners?" he broke the silence.

"Well, so far I'm one for one, haven't really branched out." She looked away. "Yet," she teased.

xxxxxxx

Luke emerged from the tent later that day clad in his swim trunks. Lorelai looked up at him.

"What's this?" she asked, gesturing to his attire. He held up the tube of soap in his hand. "And just where do you plan to use that? In the river?"

He nodded. "Exactly."

She gasped. "I was kidding! You're really going to go in the river?"

"It's just a river," Luke told her. "It's water. Water gets you clean." He continued on his way towards the edge of the river.

"Seriously?"

"This is the only way to get clean."

"You're not serious," she looked at him in shock as he waded into the water. He paused for a minute, apparently getting used to the temperature.

"Do you see any showers around here?" he answered her question with question.

"No, which I really, really can't get behind. I mean, showers, plumbing, warm, running water… all inventions that better our lives."

"You can do without running water for two days." He waded the rest of the way in.

"Well, then, I don't want to hear any complainants tonight when I smell and am sleeping in the same tent as you."

"Then come in and clean off," he stated as if it was obvious. Lorelai put her hands on her hips and looked at him.

"That water's probably just making you dirtier."

"It's clean," he promised.

"Oh, what do you know?"

"I'm in the water, I can safely say that it's clean."

"Well, then, it's cold."

"It's not that cold."

"No, but when you get out it's going to be freezing."

"It's warm today," he pointed out.

"Yes, but last night it was freezing. Getting in that water now will give me the chills for the rest of the day, and then when it comes time to go to sleep and it's cold again I'll still be freezing. Then guess who you're going to find in your sleeping bag again?"

He rolled his eyes. "Fine, have it your way."

She watched him dip under the water, questioning her choice to refuse to get in. It was kind of warm. And she would love to feel somewhat cleaner, especially after the gross way she had woken up that morning.

"You're insane," she decided.

"Yes. I'm the insane one in this relationship, clearly."

A small laugh came out of her mouth involuntarily, but she stopped it just as fast as it came out. She didn't think that laughing at him or agreeing with him that she was insane would help her case here.

"If I'm still freezing tonight…"

He sighed. "Then you can gladly sleep in my sleeping bag again."

She grinned at him. "Really?"

He shrugged. "I might not be in it if that's the case, but sure, you're welcome."

"Luke!" she grumbled.

"Just kidding. I promise, you'll warm up before it gets cold tonight, If it gets cold tonight. It's really warm today, it might be warmer tonight."

"Oh, yeah?" she asked, "and you'll see to it yourself that I'm warm?"

He shook his head, knowing where this was going. "Yes. I'll warm you up myself if I have to."

She giggled. "Sounds like a plan."

"Now will you just come in already? I didn't plan on staying in here for the whole day. Go change."

"I have a better idea," she stated, pulling her shirt over hear head quickly and tossing it down, then quickly stepping out of her shorts and kicking them aside. "You can't get truly clean with a bathing suit on."

"And this," he gestured at her in her underwear, "is different from a bathing suit, how?"

She undid the clasp to her bra and let it fall from her shoulders. "It's not. But this is."

"God," he groaned, knowing that what had once been the simple plan of quickly washing up wasn't going to be so simple after all. Jolted from his thoughts, he realized that Lorelai had shed the rest of her clothes and was wading into the water.

"You lied!" she gasped. "It is cold!" However, she didn't let the cold deter her and waded all the way in as quickly as she could.

"It's not that cold," he argued. "At least, when you have some amount of clothing on, it's not," he smirked at her.

"If some rapid comes up and sweeps us away…"

"Then you'll really wish you had worn your bathing suit," Luke interjected. "I'm sure, however, your rescuers will be glad you didn't."

"You'd let them ogle your fiancée like that?" she pretended to be offended. "Oh my God, I'm freezing!" Luke couldn't help but laugh at her as she bounced around from the cold. "Shut up," she added.

"Sorry, but do you see yourself?"

"Okay, tip. Laughing at your fiancé when she's naked? Not always the best idea."

"You know what I mean." He handed her the tube of soap. "Here, go crazy."

She looked at the tube and sighed, apparently unable to take another special camping product she knew nothing about. "What is this? This isn't regular soap."

"No, it's special soap. It doesn't contaminate the water. Unless, of course, you'd like to be responsible for making the river a big bubble bath."

"God, a bubble bath would be so good right now," she shivered, squeezing soap onto her palm. "A warm one." She ran the soap through her hair and then dunked underneath the water to rinse it. She had to disappear under the water a few times before all the soap was rinsed out. "Luke?"

"What?" he asked, only halfway paying attention to her as he rinsed soap off his own body.

"I don't know if I can finish washing up. It's really cold."

"Well what to you want me to do about that?"

"Help?"

He shook his head quickly. "Lorelai, no."

She grinned at him, apparently ready to make this a challenge. "Please? Besides, I can't really reach my back," she added with a knowing smile.

"No. You know where that's going to lead us, and that's not a good idea. Not only are we in the river, which makes that impossible, but if we get out, we'll end up in the dirt or something and we're all wet… just trust me, it will be more of a hassle than it's worth."

"Someone has some experience in this area," she teased.

"I do not. I'm just saying, think about it logically."

"Fine then," she pouted, "give me the soap so I can do it myself." She held out her hand, and her engagement ring glistened under the sun. Luke sighed. Her engagement ring was already on the same level as the black dress and the hair flip and the use of 'I love you.' He'd give in; he simply couldn't resist her whenever she flashed it at him. As far as he knew, she didn't know this yet (unlike the use of the other things, which she used often for her benefit). Then again, it was Lorelai, and she was often ten steps ahead of you even if it didn't seem like it.

Besides, it wasn't like he needed all that much encouragement to run his hands over her bare body. What he needed, though, was self control, because there was no way he was going to get sand and dirt and whatever else stuck to him after just getting clean simply because he happened to be all wet when Lorelai started playing games with him.

"Never mind," he growled. "I'll do it."

She grinned knowingly. "You're too easy."

"I know. And you are going to be the death of me."

"Better me than someone else," she stated, and then stopped talking when she felt Luke's hands sliding across her back. "However, I'd kind of like to keep you around."

xxxxxxx

Lorelai sat on her favorite rock, the one she had been sitting on the night before while toasting marshmallows, and watched Luke expertly manage to make burgers on the small oven, made especially for camping. She had fallen in love with the oven, one of the special camping supplies that hadn't made her scratch her head, when it had been where Luke made her pancakes for breakfast.

"He can cook anywhere," she mused. "A diner, our house, in the middle of nowhere. How much better could it get?"

Luke glanced at her. "The diner oven and the house oven pretty much have the same idea behind them."

"Sure. But one set of burgers you sell, the other set you make to eat. Well, for me to eat. Although," she paused, "I guess the same could be said for a good amount of the diner burgers."

"Anyway," he told her, "I cooked these when we were at home. They're just thawing out. I wouldn't trust this thing to actually cook them all the way through."

"And to think you subjected me to sandwiches last night."

"I thought that you'd be so fed up with camping by now that you could use the burgers tonight."

She chuckled. "I'm not, though."

"Not what?"

"Fed up with camping. It's not as bad as I thought it would be, minus a few little incidents. It's… fun. I mean, being with you is fun, so I guess that makes the camping fun."

He raised his eyebrows. "Really."

She nodded. "Yeah. I like spending time with you." She paused. "Y'know, in case that wasn't clear, being that I'm wearing your ring on my finger."

"Well, I like spending time with you, too."

"Even though I'm a camping spaz? I can't count the number of times I've thought you must be thinking, 'If only she wasn't here, this would be so much easier or more fun or more relaxing.'"

"If I was looking for things to be easy or relaxing I wouldn't be with you in the first place."

She swatted his arm lightly. "Mean."

"I'm kidding," he said. "You know that."

She smiled. "But since you excluded the 'more fun' part, I take it things are at least more fun with me, if not easy and relaxing."

"I have to admit, you have been entertaining."

"At least you're getting a good laugh out of my camping spaz show."

"You haven't been that much of a spaz," he admitted. "Except for maybe the stick full of fire, the sleeping bag, and the fishing. Oh, and-"

"Stop, please," she teased. "I'd care not to reflect on those moments right now."

"The point is, spaz or not, I'd rather have you here with me than… not."

She grinned. "Well, I'm glad."

"Here," he handed her a plate with a burger and a bun. "Now it's not up to diner quality…"

"I'm good with any quality," she quickly agreed, jumping up to slather her burger with condiments.

xxxxxxx

"Okay," Lorelai sat down next to Luke on the ground where she had set a blanket. "Now, since you won't let me have a fire tonight—"

"Because it's like 20 degrees hotter tonight than it was last night…"

"I figure all we have is untoasted marshmallows," she held up the bag next to her, "and star gazing for tonight."

"I guess the weathermen were right about it being warm this weekend," he mused, "just took a little longer to kick in."

"Yeah. It's nice, though. Much nicer than last night."

He nodded. "So."

"So…" she repeated.

"Let's hear about your knowledge of stars tonight."

"I don't know anything about stars."

"So? Pretend. I won't know the difference," he mocked.

"Touche."

"I'm waiting."

"Okay, fine. But if I'm in charge, we have to get in position-"

"I hate to have to be the one to say it, but dirty."

"You have definitely been around me way too long," she noted. "Now lie back."

"What?"

"We have to get the full effect. Lie down and look up." He gave in and lay back on the blanket, and she followed suit. "Okay. So. Here we have… millions of stars."

Luke turned to frown at her. "Creative."

"I'm just getting started, be patient."

"Right. Sorry."

"And over there," she pointed in an ambiguous direction, "we have a fish."

"A fish, huh?"

"Yeah. A fish." She paused. "That's, uh, one of the zodiac signs, isn't it?" she frowned. "That would make the story sound better if it was."

"You're in charge, I can't help."

She groaned. "I'm in charge and I'm asking- what's the zodiac sign with the fish?" She thought about it. "Gemini is the twins. Leo is the lion. There's a crab… that's kind of a fish."

"Pisces."

"And again, for someone who's so bitter about astrology…"

"Just get on with it."

"So. That there is Pisces."

"That's it? After all that that's all you have to say about it?"

"Well, what do you want, its history? The name of the stars that make it up?"

He smirked knowingly. "Sure."

"Sorry, that's not on my lesson plan. So, Pisces, the fish. In honor of Tommy who escaped death today."

Luke let out a laugh. "What else?"

"Hmm," she stared at the stars, trying to find something that actually looked like something to her. "Over here is the famous 'Digital Camera.'"

Luke shut his eyes for a moment, trying to figure out if she had really just said that. "What?"

"Never heard of it?" she asked. "It's so obvious. Don't you see a digital camera?"

"No."

"Well, it is. But the beauty of this constellation is that it changes over time. Before digital cameras, it was just a regular camera. Cool, huh?"

"You're insane. Really, insane."

"And," she began again, getting into it, "there's a bunch of stars, forming, ironically, a star."

He squinted up at the sky. "I actually see that. I think."

"Really?" she got excited at this prospect.

"Yeah." He lifted his hand and pointed in the direction. "Right there, right?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed, excited. "I can't believe you can see it, too."

"Only if I look really hard for it."

"Still. It proves I'm not out of my mind completely." She turned to look at him with a smile.

He shrugged. "Either that or I am, too."

"Okay. Now this constellation is important," she told him. "It's a heart."

"A heart?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"I don't see a heart."

"It's right there," she pointed in a precise direction. "I can really see that one."

"Again, I think that's Scorpio."

She froze and turned her head to look at him. "You're kidding."

"No. I think that's the same one we were looking at last night."

"Luke? Scorpio? A heart? If that's not saying we're written in the stars, then what is?"

"There's no heart there, first of all…"

"I thought there was. And that's creeping me out," she teased.

He shook his head. "Anyway."

She scooted closer to Luke she took his hand and gave it a squeeze, then intertwined their fingers. She glanced up at the stars above them again, but this time she was noticing how many there were, and she briefly wondered if there was another galaxy out there with a bunch of planets with life on them. She realized just how insignificant she and Luke were to the big picture. To each other, they were everything, but to the world they were nothing.

She pictured planets full of other people and wondered, for a moment, how in the hell she had gotten so lucky to be thrown right here with Luke. Right where she could find him.

"Maybe we really are written in the stars."

He eyed her suspiciously. "What?"

She rolled over slightly so that she was facing him. "Look how big the world is, Luke. And somehow, we ended up right here, together?"

"Now you're going to turn all philosophical on me?"

She shrugged. "Just thinking."

He appeared to be thoughtful. "Maybe," he finally agreed.

She threw a leg over him and moved so that she was on top of him, then began planting a series of quick kisses on his lips.

"Lorelai-"

She toyed with the collar of his shirt. "C'mon. Take advantage of the fact that the world put me here with you."

"We're outside."

"So?"

"So… we're outside, someone could see-"

"Have we seen one person this whole weekend?" she reasoned.

"Well, no, but-"

"So I'd say we're safe." She moved from his jaw to the sensitive area just beneath his ear, planting light kisses there. "It's late. It's secluded. It's dark."

He groaned. "The ground is filthy."

"Good thing we have this handy blanket under us then," she noted, beginning to undo the buttons on his shirt. "The stars are watching. We can't let them down."

"That's slightly creepy."

She ignored him and finished unbuttoning his shirt, sliding her hands under it and sliding it off quickly. Then she looked at him questioningly, waiting for a sign indicating if he wanted to do this or if he really wanted to stop.

"If you think I'm going to be able to resist you again today, you're wrong."

She laughed. "You should learn not to try and resist me."

"You make it hard, that's for sure."

She couldn't help but laugh at this. "Now that was a true dirty."

Luke rolled his eyes and tugged her shirt over her head. She willingly lifted his arms to make it easier. He threw her shirt to the side and rolled them over so that he was on top of her.

"Keep me on the blanket!" she reminded him, and he laughed into her neck where he had just begun planting kisses.

"Now who's the one freaking out about being on the ground?" he teased.

"Shush," she chided and poked him in the ribs before capturing his lips with hers again. The feel of his arms around her never failed to make her feel safe, and even here, in the middle of nowhere with the breeze floating across them, she felt completely safe.

Her thoughts vanished a moment later and the only thing she could think about was Luke as they made love under the stars. She marveled at the juxtaposition between feeling so insignificant and so important at the same time.

xxxxxxx

"Now, shouldn't taking the tent down be easier than putting it up?" Lorelai asked, watching Luke struggle with the tent and the poles once again.

"You'd think."

"For Christmas I'm so getting you one of those pop up tents."

"That means you're going to have to come back again," Luke pointed out, tugging a pole out of the tent.

"I know." He looked up at her and she smiled. "I mean, I know now which poles are A, which ones are B, and which ones are C. I won't look clueless about everything next time."

"Hey, do me a favor and hold the tent?"

She nodded and held it up as he continued to remove poles.

"So, how was it?"

"What?"

"This weekend. Did you have fun? Honestly."

He paused and looked up at her. "Yeah. I did."

She couldn't keep a smile off her face. "Well, good." She shifted slightly as she continued to hold the tent up. "You know, we do things that I like to do a lot."

"And?"

"And we never do things you like to do. Until now."

"Not completely true," he told her with a knowing look, and she laughed.

"Okay, so maybe sometimes we engage in activities we both enjoy," she smirked, "But seriously, Luke. We go to movies. We go out to dinner. We watch movies. We go ice-skating. I drag you out into the snow. I make you go to town events. All things I like to do. I want to do things you like to do more often. It's only fair."

"You know how you said before that you had fun this weekend because you were with me?" She nodded. "Lorelai, the same has always gone for me. Movie night? Firelight Festival? If I'm with you, I'm fine."

She looked at him lovingly. "Well good. I'm glad." He moved inside the tent for a moment. "But still," she called. "I want to do more things you like to do."

"You're not going to get an argument from me," Luke's muffled voice came from inside the tent.

"What?" Lorelai asked. Without thinking she let go of the tent to move closer to Luke, and with most of the poles now missing, it collapsed with him inside.

She covered her mouth with her hands. "Sorry!"

He moved around inside the tent until he slid out of it. "Another thing to know about next time: don't let go of the tent when I'm inside it."

"Next time we're going to have a pop-up tent," she reminded him.

"Right," he remembered, getting up off the ground.

"How about a baseball game?"

"What?"

"Let's go to one."

"I haven't been to a game in a long time," he admitted.

"So, perfect. We'll go. And, believe it or not, I know baseball's not in season, so I have a while to prepare for this. We'll go, I'll know nothing, I'll make an idiot out of myself, most likely embarrass you, eat tons of things you can't even stand to look at and probably wear some crazy outfit. Sound good?"

He chuckled. "Yeah. Sounds good."

She kissed him. "Okay."

xxxxxxx

"For old time's sake!" she held up Reggae Fever and looked at Luke knowingly.

"Lorelai, jeez, I thought by explaining to you why I bought the CD meant you'd drop the fascination with it."

"But now it's kind of like our CD." She paused. "Right? I mean, I've successfully made it so this CD reminds you of me, too."

"God, yes. Every time I look at the CD I'll remember how annoying you can be."

"Oh, please," she dismissed him. She popped the CD in and looked at the back. "So which one of these songs do you want to dance to at our wedding?"

"I'm ignoring you now."

"Fine. If you're ignoring me anyway, can I go all soft on you for a minute?"

Luke looked at her, unsure. "I guess."

She twisted a little in her seat to look at him. "I mean, I know I told you that I had a good time camping because I was with you. But that also reinforced this idea I've always had about you."

"What idea?" he played along.

"That if I have you around, things will always be okay. You know? Things I think I don't want to do, things I'm scared to do, things that seem unbearable, whatever—if you're there, I'll be okay. And I've always kind of known this, but this weekend was example one."

"Oh," Luke said quietly. "Well… I'm glad."

"Okay. So soft moment over," she told him, straightening up in her seat. "I so need a shower."

"Me too."

"Hmm. Well, you need a shower, and I need a shower, a nice long one at that… I don't want to use up all the hot water and leave none for you. I wonder how we could prevent that from happening?"

"Take a shorter shower?" Luke reasoned playfully.

"Well, sure. Or you and I could just take a nice long, long one together."

"Hey, whatever we have to do."

She giggled. "I love you."

He tore his eyes off the road for a moment. "I love you too."

"Luke?"

"Hmm?"

"There's a coffee place just a few miles up…"


End file.
